Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I will start by commending the conferees on this legislation for their tremendous hard work. They have worked very hard to resolve many of the issues involved in this very complex bill, and they have made tremendous progress. I find it incredible that we are not allowing the conference time to complete its work when they have, indeed, made such progress. The Senate-passed bill accomplishes three major goals: First, it would protect patients' rights and hold HMOs accountable for providing the care they promise. As Senator Frist says, our legislation would get people the care they need when they need it. You should not have to hire a lawyer and file a lawsuit and wait years in order to get the health care you need. Instead, our bill has a quick appeals process to help people get the care they need when they need it, without resorting to an expensive lawsuit. Second, our legislation would improve health care quality and outcomes. Third--and this is the critical difference between the two approaches being discussed today--our legislation would expand, not contract, access to health care. The fact is that costs matter. We cannot respond to the concerns about managed care in a way that resorts to unduly burdensome Federal controls and excessive lawsuits that drive up the cost of insurance so that we cause people to lose access to health care altogether. That is the crux of this debate.”